'Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13' preview

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 is getting ready to swing into stores next month, only this time Tiger's got a few new tricks up his sleeve. While the Tiger Woods series has always been a benchmark for excellence in the virtual golfing environment, recent releases have become a little routine, offering minor incremental upgrades instead of real innovation.

The latest game in the series has undergone a much more radical reinvention, adding a whole new gameplay mechanic, game modes and Kinect support, not to mention the usual enhancements to the visuals and presentation - oh, and Wayne Rooney's in it too. We iron out our best polo shirt and polish the golf clubs as we sample a few holes in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13.

If you're going to reinvent a gaming franchise, you've got to start with the controls. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 adds a completely new gameplay mechanic called Total Swing Control, which lead designer Mike DeVault describes as the "biggest change to the system in the past ten years". If you know anything about EA Sports titles it's that they're obsessed with mapping everything to the analogue sticks, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 is no different.

Having set up the desired shot, the onscreen golfer is shadowed by an optimum swing arc, which correlates to the analogue stick motion. Pull the stick back in a straight line, for example, (assuming that's what the shot requires) and the swing and arc will line up together, resulting in a more accurate shot. Adjusting stance and distance impacts the size and angle of the arc, allowing players to draw or fade each shot. It all adds up to a staggering 62 million shot varieties!

Forward swing also plays a bigger role in this year's release. After pulling back on the stick, players will need to smoothly push it forward again if they're to get anywhere near the required level of power. The developers have eliminated the ability hold the stick at the top of the swing in order to increase power, in favor of a more challenging (and authentic) forward motion. A marker can also be placed at different points on the ball, aiding chip shots from bunkers and ground shots in high wind. It's all very high tech.

If Kinect Sports: Season Two proved anything, it's that Kinect has the potential to nail golf games. By the looks of things, EA Sports agrees, because Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 actually uses many similar features. Players can use voice commands and gestures to change clubs, view the course and line up that perfect shot. We really liked this in Kinect Sports and it seems to work just as well in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13.

The biggest difference between this and Microsoft's offering is the way players take their shots. Instead of the anticipated - and, let's be honest, much more natural - sideways stance, players actually face the screen, swinging into the wall or window, as opposed to the television set. While this may seem a little odd, and it's definitely slightly little jarring at first, it enables Kinect to track more body parts, allowing for more accurate and realistic golf swings.

In theory, this enables Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 to remain a proper golf sim, even in Kinect mode. While in Kinect Sports you were pretty much guaranteed a half decent shot regardless, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 is much stricter, especially on higher difficulty levels. Electronic Arts is billing this as one of the most accurate portrayals of golf you can have on a video game console, so it will be interesting to see if the Kinect sensor can keep up with the action. It certainly appeared to in our brief time with the game.

If all of this sounds a little serious and po-faced, the brand new Tiger Legacy Challenge should almost certainly lighten the mood. Born out of conversations between Woods and the development team, Tiger Legacy Challenge follows the journey of Woods from toddler to champion - including a few hypothetical scenarios based in the future. It offers a light-hearted look at the life of Tiger Woods through a series of challenges based on real-life events and occurrences.

Early challenges see Woods the toddler attempt to chip balls into a paddling pool, or practise his swing by hitting balls against a golf net - something he would do almost every day. Playing through multiple different eras, players recreate a young Tiger's appearance on The Mike Douglas Show, the moment he won his first junior championship and some of his more famous shots and putts. One of our favorite scenarios sees Woods practising teeing off while his father attempts to distract him with air horns and other loud noises.

Not only are the challenges intended to be a bit of fun, but they also serve as an in-game tutorial, helping players to get to grips with the new gameplay mechanics. Not only that, but they're also the key to unlocking a host of bonus videos and interviews with the man himself. We also really like the change in graphical style, the cartoonish visuals becoming more realistic the further players proceed.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 looks like it will be well worth checking out when it is released next month. The overhaul to the core gameplay experience should benefit the franchise, while Kinect mode looks like a real coup for Microsoft. Tiger Legacy Challenge, meanwhile, is one of the more interesting tutorial modes we've ever come across, and should provide a welcome break from the serious business of winning trophies, majors and tournaments. Fingers crossed the rest of the game holds up when it is released in March.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 will be available on Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 27 in North America and March 30 in Europe.

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Play as a young Tiger in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13's Legacy mode.
Copyright: EA
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